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Palestinian People, A History, The
Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2004 by Abraham, A J
Kimmerling, Baruch and Joel S. Migdal. The Palestinian People, A History. MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. 508 pp.
The Palestinian People, A History is one of the most significant books of the twentieth century!
This book by two noted professors, Baruch Kimmerling and Joel. S. Migdal, pokes a very large hole, a huge one, in the doctrine of Zionism. Its main thesis, although not an attack on Zionism, is, indeed, opposed to 'Zionist thought that "there was no self identified Palestinian nation (people)., .before Zionism." (p. xv). Thus, the Palestinian people, in the Zionist view have had no true political history; their struggle for national self-determination was a response or reaction to the Jewish resettlement or colonization of the Holy Land. The authors clearly show that this was not true.
Until the first publication of this work in 1993, under the title: Palestinians: The Making of a People, the Zionist view was that Palestine (a geographical entity or name) was "a peopleless land for a landless people." So, whom did the Jewish settlers encounter there? According to Zionist doctrine some marauding Arabs who have no legitimate rights in Palestine. This is the world-wide Zionist perspective that is challenged by Kimmerling and Migdal.
This four part study covers the history of the Palestinian people from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The last part is new reflecting the failure of the Oslo Accords and the role of the Israeli-Arabs caught in a web of ambiguity in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The book concludes with some of the author's ideas on how to resolve the problem of two nations claiming one territory.
Appended to this book are 37 pages of chronology and 88 pages of notes and references - its very well researched.
This study is a monumental ground-breaking book for all people interested in the Arab-Israeli struggle. It is must reading.
A.J. Abraham John Jay College (CUNY)
Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2004
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